“By early 1922 the Mennonites of the Ukraine had survived most of the major crises which had threatened their existence. The price in terms of men and materials had been a very high one. The events transpiring in southern Russia after the Bolshevik revolution left an unhappy legacy that had serious implications for the future of the colonists. Like many of their Russian countrymen, they were victims of civil anarchy and war. Between 1917 and 1921 they faced an accumulation of circumstances beyond their control. The traditional Russian attitude towards its minorities; the ethnic origin of the Mennonites; the pre-war economic well-being of the Mennonite colonies; their geographic location which placed them directly in the path of the civil war; the German occupation; the formation of a Selbstschutz – all of these issues constituted formative forces eventually contributing to the destruction of Mennonitism in the Ukraine. The documents which follow graphically illustrate the various dimensions of the tragedy which had befallen the various Mennonite settlements” (p.14).
--John B. Toews, Professor Emeritus from the University of Calgary and Regent College in Vancouver

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